If the Welfare Reform Bill passes, the results will be horrific and at the Department for Work and Pensions, they are confident that it is a price worth paying.
Sue Marsh blogs at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
Recently, it was reported that Crisis, the charity for the homeless, had warned 11,000 young disabled people were at risk of losing their homes due to the coalition’s housing benefit cap:
“Although 4,000 of the most vulnerable disabled claimants will be exempt because they need help through the day or night, most ill and disabled people will be forced to move into cheaper accommodation, often outside the area where they live.”
Those aged 25-34 will now only be able to rent shared accommodation rather than a one bed flat, on average, losing £41 per week towards their rent. The article makes the point that:
“This disturbing cut will force people suffering serious physical disabilities or mental illness to share with strangers, even if it damages their health.”
Well, yes it will and it is shocking. Not too shocking of course until we start to see things that make us feel uncomfortable. Not too shocking until we pass twisted bodies on the streets, their collecting cup lodged into their wheelchair handles, but shocking nonetheless.
Actually the really shocking thing is the accumulation of all the cuts faced by sick or disabled people and the effect it will have on their lives and almost certainly, their homes.
We already face the squeeze that able bodied people face. The VAT rise, the high inflation, the public sector cuts, the pay freezes, but overwhelmingly this group already live in poverty. On top of all of this, Scope report that sick and disabled people will lose £9.2 billion over the term of this parliament.
“The government’s proposed welfare reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose over £9.2 billion of critical support by 2015 pushing them further into poverty and closer to the fringes of society.”
The figure 9.2 billion is more than 10 per cent of Mr Osborne’s entire UK cuts to reduce the deficit. A full 10% taken from those with extra costs, extra needs and very, very difficult lives; it doesn’t matter how often I write it, I am shocked and terrified by its implications.
That’s 3.5 million people. Again, I write it and can hardly believe it’s true. Many don’t yet know what they face. Some will never know – their disabilities are too severe – but they will be affected just the same.
I have no idea how many of those 3.5 million will lose their homes, but the maths seems fairly clear. The entire cost (xls) to the welfare budget of sickness and disability benefits is £16 billion. 9.2 billion is over half of that.
I’m sure that unlike me, you won’t want to read this lengthy transcript of the Welfare Reform Bill committee, currently on its last stages through parliament, but I wish you would. After all these points were made and more, after a full discussion of the horrors that lie ahead for the sick and disabled, the poverty they are facing, the categorical failure of work programmes to help when their benefits are removed, Chris Grayling, Minister of State for Work and Pensions, had little to say.
To summarise, his answer was “I don’t care, we can no longer afford it…”
I don’t exaggerate – I wish I did. You can read it for yourselves. So, if I were you, I’d get used to seeing sick or disabled people on the streets. If this bill passes, the results will be horrific and at the DWP, they are confident that it is a price worth paying.
152 Responses to “The shocking impact of Osborne’s heartless cuts on the disabled”
Andy
Lordy! Some righteous right wing frothing here. Too much money is paid out in housing benefit, it’s true, but that’s not the fault of tenants. The attack on social housing that started with Thatcher’s gerrymandering Right to Buy and continued under successive Tory and Labour governments continues. At the same time an artificially created housing bubble has left private landlords in the clear to exploit both housing benefit and their tenants, using the falsely created high cost of housing to justift high market rents. Instead of aiming their guns at this ridiculously under regulated sector and bringing it in line to benefit both the public purse and those who NEED to rent privately, Tories aim once again to demonize those who for whatever reason HAVE to fall back on assistance. Many people who claim housing benefit also work, or have worked, and pay into the system. These ‘reforms’ are using a sledgehammer to crack a nut and avoiding the real issues, and the feeble/selfish minded fall for it hook, line and sinker.
Anon E Mouse
Sue Marsh – You say: “As for the person who claims there are no cuts, well you’re just so misguided, there’s nothing to really say.”
So now you are resorting to the old left method of refusing to discuss the issue when you are proven to be wrong – better than the usual smearing I suppose.
From The Guardian, hardly a supporter of the government with idiots like Polly Toynbee writing for it: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/may/24/government-borrowing-hits-record-figure-april
Now instead of posting what you wish was true perhaps you’d like to address the fact that you are simply wrong Sue Marsh and retract your previous comments…
Helen
Unbelievable comments. To suggest that the cuts aren’t even happening is almost funny, were it not such a serious situation. Of course the unemployed shouldn’t be living in more expensive houses than working people, and very few actually are. The media is having a field day with hatred against the disabled, and the lies that are being printed as being the majority, is shameful. Sue wasn’t discussing the general unemployed. She is discussing the disabled people in our country, who, despite what everyone is being spoon fed to believe, aren’t actually criminals. Some disabled people have health needs that cost money: carers, wheelchairs, medical equipment. A disabled child may actually NEED a separate bedroom from their sibling, rather than it being something assumed as a luxury. Where are all these disabled people living in mansions though?? Everyone needs someone to hate, and the public are certainly taking the media up on their offer of the disabled being the target. This is disgusting. Sue, thank you for a good article highlighting the current situation.
Sue Marsh
Anon E Mouse – I don’t even understand what you’re claiming? What am I simply worng about? Osborne not cutting? I backed up my point with what he’s actually spending the money on.
The spending plans ALWAYS set out that Osborne would NOT cut the debt, he would spend more. That is very different to departmental cuts and cutting the deficit.
So what am I wrong about? That sick and disabled people are being asked to shoulder an unfair level of deficit reduction? That millions are about to be abandoned? That myself, Scope, the CAB, Compass, Professor Harrington, Professor Greg, the Social Security Committee (Gov’s own advisors) Mind, Mencap, and most other charities have produced all of this research and opposition?
I would indeed love a socialist utopia as you put it, but in the meantime I’ll content myself with a society that simply doesn’t allow terribly ill or disabled people to go to the wall.
Paul Abbott
RT @leftfootfwd: The shocking impact of Osborne's heartless cuts on the disabled http://t.co/0k7c7hL << Me again!